Having belief in a "higher-power" in no way implies belief in creationism as being described here.

Certainly a "higher power" could simply watch what 'evolved' out of a dish of leftover meatloaf.

Actually if you look at Hazen's bibliography the vast majority of his work that has been published on the origins of life has been in book form which is not peer reviewed. His peer reviewed work deals with some facets of early fossils, nitrogen reduction in the postulated early earth, etc, but nothing stating his theories of the origins of life.

Well if you believe in a higher power that is omniscient then when that higher power set things in motion it would have known what would happen. Sorta makes sense doesn't it? If a being sets events in motion that result in the creation of humans, is that creation? I would say yes. Is it "intelligent design"? I would say yes. It is not the 6,000 year old earth stuff that the evolutionists like to trumpet to make the creationists look silly, but it is intelligent design.

That’s the key: “taught to think”. Those who believe creationism and/or ID are taking it on faith, either their own or what had been spoon fed to them by their religious superiors. They have to believe creationism and/or ID on faith and faith alone, because that is all there is. There is no science whatsoever behind either. This goes back to the discussion yesterday:

I believe I demonstrated yesterday that blind, ultimate, complete, unwavering faith is a bad thing. One of the main reasons I contribute to threads like these is to hopefully get people to give up this blind, ultimate, complete, unwavering faith and think for themselves. If they think for themselves, and come to the same conclusion, then fine, at least they thought for themselves rather than taking it on blind faith (but I seriously doubt that if they give up blind faith they would come to the same conclusion).

Unless you start to think for yourself, you will never adapt, change, learn and grow, and neither will society. Blind, ultimate, complete, unwavering faith leads to societies like the Taliban.

Trekkor is one of these people. He thinks his blind faith is a positive thing, but his blind faith has prevented him from adapting, changing, learning or growing, and his contributions to society reflect that. In fact, he is so closed to new ideas that I doubt he is open to the idea that he is closed to new ideas (if you can follow that).

The higher power thing is belief, Rick. It's certainly a possibility, but to date, there is no evidence to support that. If that changes, well, that'll be something, now won't it? :)

Let's see, you believe in a creator and ID (or at least give it scientific credence). I think that says it all.
I have sad it over and over. ID=religion. If you believe in ID, you are taking an anti-science stance in general.
Have you read about the history of the anti-evolution movement in this country? Are you familiar with the trials, agencies like the Insitute for Creation Research, Discovery Institute, Answers in Genesis, the individuals like Behe, Dembski, Johnson, Gish, Ham, etc. ? Do you know what they represent and why?

I can’t speak to this Hazen guy, but there has been a lot of proper, peer reviewed science on the origins of life. They have made a lot of progress. It just so happens that at this particular moment in history, it has not been 100% explained. You don’t like us posting links, so I’ll tell you to go do your own research, if you are open to new ideas and are capable of thinking for yourself. If not, forget it, don’t bother with the research.

I came across a quote the other day that clearly applies to snowedman:

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image, when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." –Anne Lamott

Here is a selected bibliography from one NASA/JPL researcher in agiogenesis:

http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

Russell, M.J., Allen, J.F., & Milner-White, E.J. 2008, Inorganic complexes enabled the onset of life and oxygenic photosynthesis. In Energy from the Sun: 14th International Congress on Photosynthesis, J.F. Allen, E.Gantt, J.H. Golbeck, B. Osmond (editors). Springer. 1193-1198.
Milner-White, E.J., & Russell, M.J., 2008, Predicting peptide and protein conformations in early evolution. Biology Direct 3, 3: doi:10.1186/1745-6150-3-3
Russell, M.J. 2007, The alkaline solution to the emergence of life: Energy, entropy and early evolution. Acta Biotheoretica, 55, 133-179.
Martin, W., & Russell M.J. 2007, On the origin of biochemistry at an alkaline hydrothermal vent. Philosophical Transactions, Royal Society of London (Ser.B) 362, 1887-1925
Baaske, P., Weinert, F., Duhr, S., Lemke, K., Russell, M.J. & Braun, D. 2007, Extreme accumulation of nucleotides in simulated hydrothermal pore systems. Proceedings of the National Academy Science, USA, 104, 9346-9351.
Russell, M.J. 2007, Der heßie Ursprung des Lebens. Spektrum der Wissenschaft January 2007, 73-81.
Russell, M.J. & Hall, A.J., 2006, The onset and early evolution of life. in Kesler, S.E., and Ohmoto, H., eds., Evolution of Early Earth's Atmosphere, Hydrosphere, and Biosphere Constraints from Ore Deposits, Geological Society of America, Memoir 198, 1-32.
Russell, M.J. 2006, First life. American Scientist 94, 32-39.
Russell, M.J., Hall, A.J., Boyce, A.J., & Fallick, A.E., 2005, On hydrothermal convection systems and the emergence of life. Economic Geology 100, 419-438.
Milner-White, E.J. & Russell, M.J. 2005, Sites for phosphates and iron-sulfur thiolates in the first membranes: 3 to 6 residue anion-binding motifs (nests): Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 35, 19-27.
Russell, M.J. & Arndt, N.T. 2005, Geodynamic and metabolic cycles in the Hadean. Biogeosciences 2, 97-111.
Edwards, H.G.M., Moody, C.D., Newton, E.M., Villar, S.E.J., & Russell, M.J. 2005, Raman spectroscopic analysis of cyanobacterial colonization of hydromagnesite, a putative martian extremophile. Icarus 175, 372-381.
Russell, M.J. & Martin, W. 2004, The rocky roots of the acetyl coenzyme-A pathway. Trends in Biochemical Science 24, 358-363.
Russell, M.J. 2003, On the importance of being alkaline. Science 302, 580-581.
Martin, W. & Russell, M.J. 2003, On the origin of cells: An hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautorophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 358B, 27-85.
Russell, M.J., Hall, A.J. and Mellersh, A.R. 2003, On the dissipation of thermal and chemical energies on the early Earth: The onsets of hydrothermal convection, chemiosmosis, genetically regulated metabolism and oxygenic photosynthesis, in Natural and Laboratory-Simulated Thermal Geochemical Processes R. Ikan ed. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers pp. 325-388.
Boyce, A.J., Little, C.T.S. & Russell, M.J., 2003, A new fossil vent biota in the Ballynoe barite deposit, Silvermines, Ireland: Evidence for intracratonic sea-floor hydrothermal activity about 352 Ma. Economic Geology 98, 649-656.
Russell, M.J. & Hall, A.J. 2002, From geochemistry to biochemistry: chemiosmotic coupling and transition element clusters in the onset of life and photosynthesis. The Geochemical News no. 113/October, 6-12.
Fallick, A.E., Ashton, J.H., Boyce, A.J., Ellam, R.M. & Russell, M.J. 2001, Bacteria were responsible for the magnitude of the world-class hydrothermal base-metal orebody at Navan, Ireland. Economic Geology 96, 885-890.
Russell, M.J., Ingham, J.K., Zedef, V., Maktav, D., Sunar, F., Hall, A.J. & Fallick, A.E. 1999. Search for signs of ancient life on Mars: Expectations from hydromagnesite microbialites, Salda Lake, Turkey. Journal Geological Society London 156, 869-888.
Russell, M.J. & Hall, A.J. 1997, The emergence of life from iron monosulphide bubbles at a submarine hydrothermal redox and pH front. Journal Geological Society London 154, 377-402.
Macleod, G., Mckeown, C., Hall, A.J. & Russell, M.J. 1994, Hydrothermal and oceanic pH conditions at 4Ga relevant to the origin of life. Origins of life and evolution of the Biosphere 24, 19-41.
Russell, M.J., Daniel, R.M., Hall, A.J. & Sherringham, J. 1994. A hydrothermally precipitated catalytic iron sulphide membrane as a first step toward life. Journal of Molecular Evolution 39, 231-243
Russell, M.J., Hall, A.J., & Turner, D. 1989. In vitro growth of iron sulphide chimneys: possible culture chambers for origin-of-life experiments. Terra Nova 1, 238-241.
Russell, M.J., Hall, A.J., Cairns-Smith, A.G., and Braterman, P.S. 1988. Submarine hot springs and the origin of life. Nature 336, 117.

Well, it seems you again prove my point and the point of the original thread. You and much of the scientific community that thinks like you reject ideas that are not in line with their own out of hand. Actually the stifling of new thought and questions is the ultimate in anti-science. Ironic isn't it?

Rick, religion is not science. ;)

Ideas are only rejected if they have no merit. If you want your "new thought" to be respected, you've got to substantiate it with some sort of evidence beyond "I really believe it's true".

We aren't talking about religion, Jim. We are talking about the squelching of thought by science in general. In this case the squelching is occurring when people question the origins of life and the scientific explanation for such.

Rick, the alleged squelching is of religion dressed up as science, but is ultimately religion. Would you let a witch doctor practice on your patients?

Jim I disagree. The questioning of the origins of life is not religious, it is an atheistic question. People like to equate it with religion because the people questioning are often religious. I am not supporting the teaching of ID as it is currently espoused by the ID community. I am, however, espousing the questioning of a hypothesis that is shaky at best. The scientific community seems to be firmly against this.

How about a reference to these ID theories or even hypotheses which science is squelching?

IMO, if there are any valid ones, it would be significant news.

Stein's attempt at showing the "squelching" has already been reasonably refuted via multiple sources, posted here previously.

Best,

Kurt

At least you aren't saying that it is a scientific question. ;)

I think even entertaining a thought for the origins of life besides abiogenesis would be a start...thus far it hasn't happened because of the same biases that are displayed in this thread.

When the supposition that the origin of life was god (call him what you want - a "creator" or a "designer") then it is religion. There is no evidence that the origin of life was supernatural. Why unnecesarily jump to the conclusion that it was?

Well, how life began IS a scientfic question and one that we don't have an answer for yet. My whole point is that it seems unless you espouse abiogenesis your thoughts on the origins of life don't seem to be welcome in the scientific community.